EPILOGUE TO THE GOOD-NATUR'D
As puffing quacks some caitiff wretch procure
To swear the pill, or drop, has wrought a cure;
Thus, on the stage, our play-wrights still depend
For Epilogues and Prologues on some friend,
Who knows each art of coaxing up the town,
And makes full many a bitter pill go down.
Conscious of this, our bard has gone about,
And teaz'd each rhyming friend to help him out.
An Epilogue, things can't go on without it;
It could not fail, would you but set about it.
Young man, cries one (a bard laid up in clover),
Alas, young man, my writing days are over;
Let boys play tricks, and kick the straw, not I;
Your brother Doctor there, perhaps, may try.
What I dear Sir, the Doctor interposes;
What, plant my thistle, Sir, among his roses!
No, no, I've other contests to maintain ;
To-night I head our troops at Warwick-lane.
Go ask your manager-Who, me! Your pardon;
Those things are not our forte at Covent-garden.
Our author's friends, thus plac'd at happy distance,
Give him good words indeed, but no assistance.
The author, in expectation of an Epilogue from a friend at Oxford, deferred writing one himself till the very last hour. What is here offered, owes all its success to the graceful manner of the actress who spoke it.